Whatever your (and my) views on free speech, offensiveness, context, and intention, for as long as Scamp is hosted by Blogger, we have to follow their rules.

As readers have pointed out, it’s about time the comments policy was tightened up anyway.

I’m going to continue to allow anonymous commenting. The knowledge that you can speak freely is what gives the comments section its pop.

However, I would ask you to please respect these…

House Rules

Do not post messages that are unlawful, harassing, defamatory, or abusive. Do not post Hate Speech, which Wikipedia defines as "comments intended to degrade, intimidate, or incite violence or prejudicial action against a person or group of people based on their race, gender, age, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, language ability, moral or political views, socioeconomic class, occupation or appearance."

No spamming or flooding. Don't repost the same message, or very similar messages, more than once.

Relevance. Interesting posts that are off the current topic are acceptable. When that happens, I'll try to start another thread, and move the comments over. However, banal or repetitive off-topic posts lower the value of the conversation for everyone and may be removed.

No impersonating. Impersonating someone is not acceptable.

Links. Do not post stupid random links.

Criticism.No personal attacks of any kind are allowed. Criticism of work is very much allowed, indeed is one of the cornerstones of this blog. However, criticism by anonymous commenters must be either very constructive or very amusing. Comments may be edited for publication.

Copyright and the law You own the copyright in your postings, but you also agree to grant to Simon Veksner a perpetual, royalty-free, non-exclusive, sublicenseable right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, play, and exercise all copyright and publicity rights with respect to any such work worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any media now known or later developed for the full term of any rights that may exist in such content. In other words, if you post a good comment, I may use it in my book. If you do not wish to grant such rights, do not post to this site. You may not violate, plagiarise, or infringe on the rights of third parties including copyright, trademark, trade secret, privacy, personal, publicity, or proprietary rights. Phew.

good call Scamp. May I also be as bold as to suggest that with the eyes of so many people (account men, planners, trade press, international media, consumer as well as industry media) now on the blog, it is indeed an advertisement for the creative discipline itself. Therefore, a little more discernment and restraint when posting would do wonders to avoid reinforcing opinion in some quarters that creatves are a bunch of adolescent clowns.

Good work scamp. Don't let the haters get you down.The only ones that want to hide behind an unrestricted blog where they can deliberatley pull down others in a strategic attempt at releasing their internal anger are the bitter, jealous ones that no one played with at school. They did however play with themselves.

I'd be interested to know if you've ever read/been in touch with Lynchy, who writes the Campaign Brief blog in Oz (campaignbrief.com).

The blog has always suffered from the same type of problems yours has, it's been condemned in the trade press, it's been hosted by google (not sure if it is anymore), it's the most popular ad blog in australia, and it's still live and kicking without censorship.

Just a bit sad seeing censorship kick in here (and if this comment gets deleted; for shame).

'there isn't a single reason for a serious, business-oriented blog with those demographics to not only be dependent on Blogger for content management, but to also rely on BlogSpot for hosting. Maybe in 2003, but not today! If their outage is such a phenomenon that it requires media coverage then surely they have enough devotees in the creative industry to usher them into a more modern, flexible, user-installed and -hosted CMS, whether it be customized or a consumer option such as dominant platforms Moveable Type or WordPress.'

Micahel/ScampSadly the CB blog IS moderated and censored to a degree. A qucik email to lynchy will confirm that. They actually had a similar problem to you, but more focussed on individuals that were using it to attack other individuals. I think it's good what you have done Scamp and I think you should stick to your guns. Healthy opinion and debate is great, libel and and attacking individuals is not. That is the domain of unmoderated forums, which this is not.

Not sure if I've got this story quite right but wasn't there a time not long ago when the Campaign Brief blog was full of really personal stuff just like Scamp has been recently and Phelps didn't do anything about it until someone set up a spoof blog full of personal stuff about Phelps?

The Campaign Brief blog in Australia is great. It keeps me in touch with home. It is a different format to yours Scamp, but Lynchie has the same constant battle with the comments area as you. Both Lynchie and Kim (who handles Asia) are passionate about creativity and are more creative than many CDs I have worked for. Their magazines are all about great ads and the people creating them, with not a media story to be seen. I wish we had a mag like that in London.

Well, the first time you posted, you called yourself 'Michael Phelps - Lord Douche' which I don't think qualifies as impersonation; Michael Phelps the swimmer has no such title.

And this time around, although you call yourself simply 'Michael Phelps', you confess that you are impersonating. And if you think about it, a person who owns up to being an impersonator is no longer impersonating.

"I will just have to accept that when I am in my blog I am not in my own house. I am a tenant there - Google are the true owners."

Fine: Google provide great blogging software.

Fine: Hate is not acceptable and it's good that Google opened a can of whoop-ass on you as you were too lame to do anything about it yourself.

Not fine: You (Scamp) being owned by Google! This is not what the web is about. Wordpress is an equally good blogging platform which frees you from being Google's b*tch. Becoming a little more responsible will allow you to cut the umbilical cord between you and your Big Mama G.

Sad you had to go through this, and I do agree that a standalone blogging software would free you from strange TOSes. However, it might also become more timeconsuming to weed out spam and whatnot on.

While I'm here, what does one have to be to fit in the "Creatives blogs" list? I'm an Art Director, graduated the school of communication arts in London way back in 1994 - and you've listed my blog Adland under "other". *shrug*

Oh, and here's an idea that perhaps you could ask your posse of readers - what is with the current surge of submitting "not approved by the client yet" work to ad-sites like mine? It can get your agency into serious trouble! (World Heart Foundation campaign from BBH is just one recent example).

Why don't you just ask someone if you might use their comment rather than wanting to assume copyright ownership? Fine, they pass up that option is they leave an anonymous comment but otherwise I can see no reason why you wouldn't want to ask permission. Hey, this isn't advertising you know where nicking ideas is de riguer.

Graham, my comments policy is adapted from the BBC's House Rules, in particular, my treatment of copyright is identical to theirs. And the BBC are right up there with Nelson Mandela and Enid Blyton on the moral high ground, are they not?